Watch kid chefs get experimental with their pizzas at the Mall of America

Think back to the days of rectangle-shaped pizza sprinkled with mini pepperoni cubes that fit perfectly into your school lunch tray. Yeah, we're glad to be past that, too. What would've been your ideal kind of pizza as a kid? This weekend, you can watch kids show off their creative culinary talents and emulate our favorite anthropomorphic turtles to bake the most righteous 'za in the land.

Eight kid chefs chosen from entries on the Nickelodeon Universe Facebook recipe contest will throw down toppings galore to try and win a Mall of America gift card and a pass to Nickelodeon Universe as part of the Summer of Turtles 2013.

Even though the time for submissions has ended, there's something to be said for watching a bunch of pint-sized chefs duking it out in the name of pizza. With $25 worth of toppings and a starter crust, they'll carefully construct a culinary work of art to be judged by Mpls.St. Paul Magazine's Stephanie March and KDWB's Big D. The judges be picking the winner based on taste (sorry, peanut butter and clam lovers), creativity, presentation, and, yes, healthy ingredients.

As this series of clips from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shows, Raphael, Michaelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo are no strangers to wacky topping combos on their pizzas. Deep down, we hope the kids are just as experimental. Cowabunga, dudes.

Watch the kids compete at the Mall of America rotunda at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 27.